29 May 2009 12:26 PM

I’m trying to remember when airports stopped selling things you needed in favour of expensive tat you don’t want.

When was the moment somebody had the idea of turning airports into shopping malls?

Instead of places where you could buy important travellers requisites, it was decided they should become emporia flogging 10-year old whiskey in a container shaped like a golf ball.

Or, God help us, those stands offering you the chance to enter a draw to win a Ferrari. I will know the day that I’ve had a total mental collapse, because I will be on one of those stands queuing up to buy a ticket.

Here’s a crazy idea for an airport to run with: what about opening a shop that offers things we want but at cut price rates? How can do they that, Frank, I hear you cry.

Well let’s start with books. What about a place offering second-hand books. Pick up what you want when you fly out, return the books when you get back – recycling blockbuster novels: what could be more environmentally friendly.

The same could work for all those other things we get for a holiday and probably only use while we’re on holiday: swimsuits, sunglasses, garish shirts, flip flops, snorkels…

A sort of real-time freecycle for holidaymakers. A proportion of all money raised would go to charity.Imagine what fantastic PR the airports would get.

26 May 2009 6:56 PM

'The best beach in America.' In a country that can claim 12,383 miles of coastline, much of it pristine (the sun-kissed flanks of California and Florida, the misty, mellow sides of Maine, Oregon and Washington, the oft-undeveloped perimeters of Texas, Alabama and Louisiana), that’s quite a title. And one that was handed, at the end of last week, to Hanalei Bay, a two-mile crescent on the distant north shore of Kauai, in the Hawaiian archipelago.

Of course, if one were to be cynical, one might say that ‘the best beach in America’ translates as ‘the best beach in the world’. The decision as to the identity of this prized stretch of shoreline was awarded by an American – one Stephen Leatherman, who works as the director of Florida International University's Laboratory for Coastal Research. He awards this accolade every year. And with Americans being a patriotic breed who tend to place huge value on their own backyard, one might reasonably assume that Dr Beach – to use Mr Leatherman’s nickname – thinks Hanalei Bay has no equal anywhere on the planet.

So is he right? He might well be. I had the privilege of dipping my toes into the Pacific at Hanalei Bay late last summer (in the dying embers of my honeymoon, nonetheless), and can confirm that it is pretty much everything you would wish of a beach. Its curved shape is so symmetrically perfect that you can almost picture it being drawn onto the top of the island by a divine hand (see the image at the top of this blog). The ocean rushes in at a satisfying pace, fast enough for surfers to ride the waves in one part of the bay, but gentle enough for swimmers to take to the shallows in others. Trees overhang the sand at the bay’s narrow ends, but peel back in the middle, allowing for an expanse of soft powder ideal for soaking up a few rays.

I spent an hour on the beach, waiting for sunset, watching workers fresh from the office (or wherever it is that evening surfers on Kauai spend their day-job hours) dashing into the surf, boards under arms (see the image below) – and felt very sorry that I had to catch a flight back to continental USA within hours. From this rose-tinted perspective, I would say Mr Leatherman made a wise choice.

Then again, maybe he didn’t. For all its beauty, I’m not convinced that Hanalei Bay is the best beach on Kauai, let alone in Hawaii, or the United States as a whole. Drive a little further west along the upper rim of the island, and – just before the terrain becomes too raw and wild to sustain even a single-lane dirt track – you encounter Haena Beach. It’s a smaller strip than Hanalei, but the sand somehow seems more golden. And the breakers roar in with impressive power – a none-too-subtle reminder that Hawaii is isolated in the middle of the biggest body of water on earth. This out-on-a-limb sensation is added to by the fact that Haena sits within the Na Pali Coast State Park, an area of plunging cliffs, volcanic peaks and dramatic viewpoints that ranks as Hawaii at its most untouched. It feels like the end of the world. Largely because it is. There’s little beyond until you hit Japan.

And this, inevitably, is the problem with these polls. They tend to be terribly subjective. Dr Beach’s top ten included Coast Guard Beach at Cape Cod – a truly delightful spot which I’ve also been lucky enough to visit. I would say it trumps both Hanalei and Haena, especially if you like your seafront windswept, deserted and under assault from the chill power of the Atlantic (like something from a mid-Eighties U2 video perhaps).

There is, as they say, no accounting for taste. My personal favourite beach, while we’re on the subject, is a little hideaway called Petani, on the north shoulder of Kefalonia’s Lixouri peninsula, in Greece. It probably isn’t the best beach on the island – that would be the much-photographed Myrtos – and it certainly has its flaws, from the pebbles that adorn much of its space to the vertigo-inducing road that winds down to it, so steep that a mountain goat might baulk at the angle of descent. But it was once the end-point of a perfect day, when the lack of ice cream stalls (there are, admittedly, a couple of small restaurants), mewling children and red-faced sunbathers only enhanced the sight of that orange disc dipping into the Ionian Sea.

More to the point, in case anyone is thinking of checking up on Dr Beach’s research, it is also distinctly closer to Britain than Hawaii…

22 May 2009 1:30 PM

Unlimited Speedy Boarding for a whole year: how could I resist the tempting easyJet offer? At a cost of £100 (plus £15 ‘Administration Fee’ – this would be to send me the card, presumably) I would become one of the Great Ones.

In easyJet’s world ‘Speedy Boarders’ are the elite. When you gather at the gate to board your flight, SB is the only designation worth bothering about. The lame, the infants, the heavy laden...out of the way, Speedy Boarders are coming through.

This was much as it was on the Titanic, after all, when First Class passengers had the right to be, well, not just Speedy Boarders but also Speedy De-Boarders when it came to the rush to get on a lifeboat.

Yes, dear reader, I could bear to be in Boarding Group ‘C’ no longer - I handed over my £100 for an easyJet Plus! Card (plus £15 ‘Administration Fee’).

With the new orange card in my hot little hand I was pleasingly first in line for the flight from Bristol to Nice. Where I discovered a potential snag: in this case, the card merely granted the right to be first to board the bus to the plane.

easyJet however had a cunning plan: we were directed towards the back of the bus. A-ha: when the bus stopped we would be the first off.

Matthew 20:16: ‘So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.’ This must have been on the bus driver’s mind when he stopped at the aircraft steps and decided to let the Speedy Boarders off last.

It was a lesson in the perils of vanity.

I would like to say that I immediately dumped the card in the bin and henceforth took my properly allotted place in the queue.

But actually ever since that unfortunate beginning I have found that having the card has been a marvellous life-enhancing experience. For £100 (plus £15 ‘Administration Fee’) I have achieved what I’ve always thought I was entitled to - I’m at the head of life’s queue.

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20 May 2009 6:15 PM

The World Wide Web looks set to find another niche to conquer with the news that airlines the world over are scrambling to offer the web as the latest in-flight service.

The New York Times has reported that the race is on between American Airlines, United and Virgin America to be the first to offer a full Wi-Fi service during a flight, but while the skies are set to filled with the World Wide Web at 30,000ft, what about those who are content simply to use the internet when on the ground?

I have just come back from a short trip to Latin America, Ecuador to be precise, and while I was away for two weeks the office didn’t really miss me that much. This was mainly because I was never really away.Taking my battered laptop with me, I was able to watch as the latest travel news unfolded with glee, and file back any interesting anecdote I could find.

But I didn’t have to head to a net café or connect a satellite phone to keep haranguing my work colleagues with the wonders of Ecuador, I simply took advantage of the free Wi-Fi at my hotel.

And, as I moved around I found the same service offered as often as I found chocolates on the pillow or an extra towel.

For a UK traveler it was a real eye-opener.

I had the same experience while on my way home. As the news broke that our flight had been delayed in Madrid even the unexpected three-hour delay at Quito Airport was passed with ease as the free, unsecured connection, allowed me time to let my friends know that I wasn’t going to make that homecoming night out that we had planned after all.

And if you didn’t have a computer, not to worry, there were terminals on hand to help you out.

It reminded me of a time three years ago when I was stuck at Frankfurt airport. All flights out were cancelled and there was little choice but to try and make my way to Berlin by bus.

I was saved by one simple thing – free access to the web. Within an hour I had a ticket and an escape route planned, I even managed to translate the German into some legible English without which I would have had to unpack the sleeping bag and find a spot in the departure lounge instead.

And, while leaving aside the issue of logging on daily while away, what a difference it was to the last time I took a jaunt around the Britain.

Back in late November I toured the UK’s budget hotels to see what they offered and one thing was obvious. While many hotels in the UK are feverishly competing to attract new customers with everything from deals on rooms to the 99p cream tea, (launched by Travelodge this week) I distinctly remember sitting in a hotel room in London looking at a Wi-Fi tariff which, if you haven’t an expense account deeper than the average MP, most people can barely afford.

It is the same story at almost all UK airports. Take a stroll along Gatwick, Heathrow or any of the regional hubs and you will see the (mostly derelict) internet cafes which charge up to £3 an hour to use usually sub-standard computers to write home.

The web is seen as something that can be used to maximise profit, which is a shame.

The UK really needs to realise that, as we head into this century’s second decade, and with the Olympics on the way, Wi-Fi is more the essential service that needs to be provided, rather than the luxury that is priced out of most people’s budget.

18 May 2009 9:36 AM

I feel very fondly for Blackpool. As Stanley Holloway noted in Albert and the Lion, it's a seaside place noted for 'fresh air and fun'. What it isn't noted for, you would have to say, is offering anything - apart from its Eiffel Tower clone - that would put you in mind of France.

So I'm not sure what the point is of the new Visit Blackpool YouTube film which attempts a sort of French cinema arthouse take on the seaside resort (watch the video here).

At first glance, you might think that Blackpool is making a pitch for the French tourist market. In fact, the French aren't really keen on holidaying anywhere outside France (thank God, you might say).

Why, anyway, would Blackpool's tourist board be interested in attracting the French? Surely in this Summer of Credit Crunch they should be turning their marketing guns on persuading British people not to go to France.

The best way that this can be achieved is ensuring that visitors enjoy the highest standards at the keenest prices. I haven't been to Blackpool for a few years but on my last visit, it was obvious that the resort needed a little sprucing up here and there.

Rather than indulging in smart arty films, Blackpool ought to be concentrating on celebrating its core values: harking back to the glory days of George Formby, Gracie Fields and Albert and the Lion.

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13 May 2009 6:08 PM

Not only does it seem to have been woefully neglected since its heyday as a holiday destination, it also played host to a group of fame-hungry backstabbers in last night's episode of The Apprentice.

The two teams were asked to rebrand the town in a bid to entice regeneration into the area.

Sniggers, I'm sure, echoed around living rooms throughout the country as one group tried to rebrand Margate as a gay destination.

I spent quite a bit of time in the town over Christmas visiting my partner who was appearing in a pantomime.

To be honest that was as camp as Margate got, so I don't fancy their chances that much and I wouldn't expect Mardis Gras to roll in any time soon.

But from what I saw, there is regeneration already happening, albeit on a very slow scale.

The historic centre - an absolute gem if you haven't seen it - was being spruced up and I met a number of dedicated passionate people trying to encourage the spark of creativity already ignited.

An independent new gallery had just opened up and set to follow in its footsteps is Turner Contemporary - a visual arts organisation which is constructing a major new building to celebrate the town's association with artist JMW Turner.

Of the region, Turner said: 'The skies over Thanet are the loveliest in all Europe'.

So if anything good comes out of The Apprentice's descent on Margate (after all someone, as Sir Alan keeps reminding them, is going to get fired), it will be that people will look past the faded hotels and peeling paint and give it a chance.

08 May 2009 5:18 PM

If you want to lose a friend go on holiday with them. A recent survey suggested that 10 per cent of friendships end after a joint holiday. I’m surprised the percentage isn’t higher.

Having a holiday with a good friend is probably more fertile ground for a blazing row than a trip with someone you know only slightly and with whom you have to maintain some degree of formal politeness.

A ‘normal’ at-home friendship sees the relationship maintaining train track predictability: you go to the pictures, you have a drink, you invite them round for a meal.

On a holiday suddenly you are plunged into the vacation equivalent of a marriage where you have to agree on a million things: breakfast, where to go after breakfast, what to do in where you go after breakfast, where to have lunch, where to go after lunch…

At first you will all try hard to please each other. After a day or so the other person will drive you so far up the wall, you wonder how on earth you can possibly have found anything to like about them. By the end of the holiday you are deleting their contact details from your mobile phone.

A 'friendly' break could well be one of those oxymorons: a luxury caravan, fighting for peace…

05 May 2009 11:59 AM

Another quick blog on Peru, following on from last month’s musingsabout Lima and The Curious Case Of The Misplaced Llama (as F. Scott Fitzgerald might have put it had he lived in South America rather than New York). It is a fascinating place, well worth a second missive – and, as already stated, a country where ‘lost’ Inca sites, fallen empires, snowy mountain peaks and cosmopolitan cities make for a constant stream of discoveries.

However, it is probably fair to say that the most striking discovery of my time in Peru was not a jungle-hidden archaeological wonder. Nor was it a bar in Arequipa – nor even the newfound knowledge that fried guinea pig is distinctly moreish (even if, inevitably, it tastes like chicken). It was the realisation that life at altitude is really rather different to life on the simple, flat parts of our planet – and that altitude sickness isn’t a lot of fun.

Altitude sickness is, of course, one of those conditions that rarely elicit much sympathy in those forced to listen to the complaints of the sufferer. Especially if those complaints come after the event, and the sufferer is wearing a suntan and a smug smile. Bearing in mind that scientific wisdom suggests it only occurs above 2,400metres (or 8,000ft) – which means it won’t assault you in western Europe outside the Alpine axis of France, Italy, Switzerland and Austria – an admission that you have struggled with altitude sickness is the equivalent of grabbing a loud hailer and bellowing: ‘I have been away to a corner of the globe so uber-distant and far-flung that the air there doesn’t work properly.’

It is the mountainous sibling of jetlag (‘Did I tell you that my holiday involved a location so exotic that my body clock didn’t know if it was coming or going?’) and – if you will allow me to push this idea to a slightly silly extreme – a cousin of both the hangover (‘I’ve consumed more alcohol in one night than health professionals say you should drink in a week, and have utterly dehydrated my body. Can I have a day off work, please?’) and gout (‘I’ve eaten a lifetime’s supply of cheese and drunk even more booze than the guy in the previous sentence. And you know what? I enjoyed every mouthful. But crikey, my leg hurts.’). The basic point being, altitude sickness is largely self-inflicted, and if you will go around clambering up huge chunks of rock, you have to expect to feel a little odd.

Not that this changes another basic point – that a meeting with what passes for breathable air at great heights can be an unnerving experience. I first noticed it somewhere around the 3000-metre mark. My tour group was on the twisting Andean ‘highway’ between the fairly sizeable town of Arequipa (in southern Peru, around 50 miles east of the Pacific) and the village of Chivay, which sits on the lip of Colca Canyon, 100 or so miles up the road (‘up’ being an entirely appropriate word here). And it slowly dawned on me that I had become aware of my breathing, that it was no longer an unconscious process, that every lungful was a less-than-full measure that was failing to do the job in the usual way.

By the time we passed through the hamlet of Canahuas, where the rusty, rickety railway line out of Arequipa gives up its battle with the incline at about the 4000-metre level, I was having to concentrate on every simple up and down of my diaphragm. And the 5000-metre milestone – by which stage we were higher than the summit of Mont Blanc, the tallest peak in western Europe (just the 4810 metres) – was a new world entirely. The landscape seemed to have gone lunar, all featureless lumps of rock and dust – apart from the occasional llama chewing obliviously at a sparse patch of grass. At one point I found myself with my head tilted entirely back, mouth wide open, sucking at the oxygen-poor air like some sort of deranged anteater trying to extract the last remnants of a termite nest.

As such, I can’t be sure that I didn’t hallucinate the following, but here we encountered what may be the world’s loftiest motorway service station. All right, that’s perhaps an exaggerated way to describe a couple of shacks, inhabited by an Andean family, where you could buy bottles of Coke and use the toilet. But on a road bereft of much in the way of kerbside refreshment, this was the equivalent of a four-restaurant pull-off zone on the M1. Although, perhaps unsurprisingly, the toilets were rather cleaner than any you find on the M1. And certainly more interesting. The attendant appeared to be the llama caught in the image above – an indignant beast who didn’t come across as overly impressed at our arrival. At least his keeper, the child below, Inca heritage written all over his face, was rather more welcoming. He didn’t seem to stop smiling until we drove away, maybe because visitors are rare, maybe because he’s rather more adept at dealing with altitude.

The altitude situation improved, partly because the road wound down into Chivay (see the image at the top of this piece) and the relative sanity of 3600metres, partly because, over three days in the clouds, we gradually adapted. But the wooziness never quite went away. Walking up any slope felt like the Thirteenth Labour Of Hercules, while, every so often and out of the blue, there would be a burst of nausea, rather like a mild hangover that bares its teeth when you least expect it.

Was it worth it? Absolutely. The phrase ‘no pain, no gain’ is rarely used in travel circles, but Colca Canyon is spectacular enough to justify any paucity of oxygen (there will be a longer feature on it in due course). And I’ve even learned to appreciate the merits of London’s dirty air since my return. At least I don’t have to think about how to breathe it.

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01 May 2009 3:07 PM

There are certain news stories that are tailor-made for rolling 24-hour TV news.

It is hard to imagine news fodder more perfect than a virus on the loose.

Unlike most news which happens and then just sort of stops, a virus has ‘legs’ – there are always developments which can run in that little banner which unfolds at the bottom of the TV screen.

‘Breaking News: man on the 8.15 from Slough sneezes…’

And there are good scary pictures: people walking through airports with face masks (I’m not sure whether people have figured this out – face masks have a limited use in stopping you giving the virus to other people, they are no good in preventing you getting the virus from others).

It’s tragic that people in Mexico have died from swine flu and regrettable that other people around the world have been infected.

But if rolling 24-hours TV news was doing its job they might offer some perspective.

In Africa every day 3,000 children die of malaria – an entirely preventable disease.

But that’s not news – if only malaria suffers could get themselves to an airport with a face mask, things might be different for them.

We’ve been through the ‘we’re all doomed’ scenario with bird flu and strangely we’re all still here.

Perhaps swine flu will be different, what do I know.

My advice, however, is to turn off the news and – if you’ve still got any money left – grab a holiday.